


Vermin

by Tel



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tel/pseuds/Tel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DS Stephanopoulos has a little problem and solves it in classic style. Set post-Moon over Soho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vermin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anotherusedpage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherusedpage/gifts).



> With thanks to Philomytha for the beta

"Peter." His phone was often unreachable. I'd made sure to call him at the hour he usually slipped out for a curry.

"Detective Sergeant Stephanopoulos." He sounded cautious. I could hear loud conversation in the background. "What's up?"

"Do wizards turn into rats?"

Blank silence and some conversation in the background. "Are you talking, like, Peter Pettigrew?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah. Tell your governor hullo for me."

"He's not..." Female giggling. I got the picture. "Why are you asking?"

 _Hooked him._ "I may have a bit of an issue and I was wondering if it was something up your alley."

The truth was, I was desperate. The local dyke plumber had happily informed me over the phone that it was a sure sign of a _working_ plumbing connection. The council had sent some people around the first time, but were now stonewalling and blaming it on the chickens. Susie's habit of keeping giant sacks of chicken feed under the stairs wasn't helping, for sure, but I felt three rats coming up the bog in the course of a month was... excessive.

"I'm working tonight," he said reluctantly. "But if you're thinking you might be a target..."

"I can take care of myself, golden boy." I don't _ever_ let them get chivalrous on me. "Look." I glanced at the calendar again. "Next Tuesday night?" Wouldn't do to sound too desperate.

"Where?"

"Tottenham, out near Tower Gardens. I'll get you the address."

"Right."

"You can bring your date, if she's cute," I said, just to nettle him. "Also, this isn't police business, yet. Purely optional. Just you being neighborly. If I see any overtime charged to my team..."

"I get the picture. Look, I..."

"And I'll see you on Wednesday, too."

I don't think he'd actually forgotten, but I suspect he hadn't quite internalised that I'd be teaching his driving course and watching his sure-to-be-amusing attempts to park a Ford minibus. It's not bad work, I've arranged to do it before. For much the same reasons. Extra leverage never hurts.

So that was settled. The rest of my night was taken up by the cantaloupe thing.

Kensington's outside my usual beat, but they needed extra staffing at the sergeant level and I had a block of time I could spare after my shift. I do about an extra shift a week to subsidize Susie's house projects and lesbian slumlord ambitions. She lost her job in the City a few years back, and after flirting with a second career as an estate agent, she's settled on managing the run-down properties we bought back when we had more income than we knew what to do with.

That was why I was there. It was a lovely evening, although rather less lovely for the husband and wife who'd gotten into a spectacular domestic dispute over the shopping right at the very top of the rather posh escalator in the Kensington High Street Whole Foods that has an extra lane just for the shopping trolleys. The situation escalated, the wife got shoved while carrying what the man considered to be an excessive number of overpriced organic cantaloupes, tripped backwards over the trolley, and sent everything she was carrying flying down the escalator. This led to a pile-up, several injuries, and one death-by-melon.

The victim was rich, pretty, and an American tourist. Needless to say, the media was already all over it. So were the solicitors. It was one of those cases that aren't quite murder but have to be investigated like it anyway - I was glad to hand it off. It was only hilarious for the first hour, anyway.

The next few days were variously tedious. I ended up testifying once on an older matter and had to fix the temporary "conservatory" again. It's really just a shack-like mess of plastic sheeting. If Susie's going to go into organic gardening consulting like she threatens to do, we'll need a more permanent set-up. And honestly we'd have the money, if she'd abandon four or five of her other projects.

I didn't hear from Grant the rest of the week. It was only when DCI Nightingale showed up on my doorstep that I figured something was up.

"Weren't expecting you," I said.

"May I come in, Miriam?" Unlike most of the people I've given permission to use my name to, he's brave enough to actually use it from time to time.

"Of course," I said, considering how to make this work out for me. "Susie, Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale is here!"

"Pleased to meet you," she said, coming up and peering over my shoulder gazelle-like.

"Thomas, this is my civil partner Susie Leroux."

"Charmed," he said. Susie's more than ten years older than me, a fair bit taller, and twice as pretty. While he seemed mostly unrattled, I'm not sure he'd quite realised about me.

"And where's Grant?" I asked, to get to the point. Nightingale winced.

"He's been... incapacitated for a bit. Nothing lasting, but he can't leave the Folly. He said you'd called him very mysteriously about rats."

I made a mental note to get the full story later. "They've been acting oddly around here. Wanted to talk to him about it."

Nightingale seemed to be trying to figure out how to detach me from Susie. I nodded towards the kitchen and she let herself be detached to make tea. All in the plan, after all.

"Why call a wizard?" he asked seriously. I considered what approach to use on Nightingale versus his rather more easily intimidated subordinate.

"Officer safety," I replied just as seriously. "I can recognise a shiv disguised as a pen, or any number of badly improvised weapons. I'm not sure I can recognise when some faceless gorm who thinks he's in the Lord of the Rings is about to jump me and mine."

"Wizards can't turn into rats," Nightingale said. "However, rats are sometimes bound into service by wizards."

"Oh, lovely."

"You're right to be concerned about being a target," he added. "If you're going to work this case, you need to take precautions. Even at home. He will not hesitate to kill."

There'd been another suspicious death of a potential source of information three weeks back. The longer we went without nailing the guy, the more this started to feel like Northern Ireland all over again. “What sort of precautions?” I asked. Garlic and holy water probably weren’t going to cut it. My Greek mama always swore by salt, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I can put some wards up as an early warning system. And I’d like to take a look at your rats.”

After we finished the first cup of tea I invited him into the back garden, which necessitated meeting the chickens. They were mostly settled in for the night, but a few gave him the evil eye.

"How many do you have?" he asked.

"Hens? Nine."

"No cockerel?"

"Cock-free zone, my place," I said with vicious cheer.

Nightingale borrowed some chicken feed to dribble in a wide circle, while I went and got more tea from Susie and briefly updated her. When I came out again, he'd put the remaining handful in the middle and was focusing.

Most of the time you don’t see rats. If you do, you know you have a problem. Until all if them crept out to sit tamely in front of him, I wasn't aware _exactly_ how large my problem actually was.

After a short while, Nightingale sat back. "Nothing out of the ordinary, Miriam," he said. "These are decidedly unmagical rats."

"Good to know," I said, sipping my tea to hide my expression. Susie peered out, looking totally unfazed. His brow furrowed and they scattered under the fence, sprinting in a rolling wave in the direction of the cemetery.

"Give me another hour and a half to set some minor wards up. They won't be back."

"Chicken house too," I said immediately.

He looked at me.

"They're family." They're too mean not to be, really.

After that I had to break out the good wine. We had a long talk while he was setting up about who our enemy was and what he might do next and what Murder Team could do to support the effort of bringing him down. Most of his stories were sobering. Seawoll had warned me that being Nightingale's primary liaison was fraught with danger, but I got the sense from Thomas that, while previously he'd been more than able to take care of himself, now he needed every bit of backup he could get.

It was a discussion we'd needed to have a long time ago, and the evening was far more productive than I'd anticipated. It was surprisingly late when he finally excused himself.

Susie raised her eyebrows as his Jag pulled out. "What was pest control asking for to come back? Two hundred quid, a bit more?"

I grinned and kissed her. "Highway robbery. Told you I could do better."


End file.
